I've Always Felt Strange
by tearsofphoenix
Summary: Because, as a reviewer said, he deserved a better everything.


**I've Always Felt Strange**

By tearsofphoenix

_Standard disclaimers applies: everything is J.K. Rowling's. She created them all, and this is only a homage to characters that she made so alive that even after the end which she has given them, they will also continue to live alternative endings. _

So this further and longer development, from Hermione pov (well, she IS the most loquacious, isn't she?), is related to some things that I wrote in my previous stories (like the revised edition of Hogwarts; a History) and to the words I wrote for her in my seven-drabbles fan-fiction, the last which I wrote before DH. This is, therefore, my attempt to continue to make sense not only of these years of reading but also of these months of writings, through which many of us invested so much in this world…

_In my AU universe I made Snape Headmaster of Hogwarts. What a blow to find written in DH the way he endured this charge, in his last year! And I said that he deserved a life worth living, I still believe it and I trust the magic of a believable miracle, now. I'm not able to do more than little vignettes like this, but other wonderful people are, thank Merlin!_

_Whitehound has begun the miracle in her new story "Flower Remedy" and with the wonderful "Giving Extras", and she has done it while keeping events in canon – so she really is magic - and as ever she has helped me with the language for this piece of mine. I thank her for have given life to that miracle and voice to my hope._

_**ssssssssssss**_

I had always felt strange, much older than my friends, but with the wish to be understood and loved; perhaps by someone with whom I didn't feel so old, someone much wiser than I could ever be.

I said, before, that she didn't know the other one: now I'm almost sure that really she didn't! And she didn't know that the other one, the young wizard that had been so brave, wasn't loved by the girl who dismissed him so easily in their youth; how could behaviour like hers have been called love? But, later, someone else loved him, and wished that he could know what it means to have a true friend, to be treasured and cared about beyond and against everything.

That's why I felt stranger than ever, during those fateful days, and at first I didn't know what to do… but how could I have let him go, I that always cared for the neglected ones? I slowly came, to him, to represent the possibility that he might feel less alone, and to be that "someone else" who made the difference. I changed my heart. And later, life actually was merciful to me and to my previous boyfriend; we both understood that even if we cared so much for each other, still there was something greater than what we had lived up to that point and it would always have been like a boulder between us, if our story had ended as she wrote it.

Now she has written all she knew of our lives, the facts, the names, and about the greatest confrontation between good and evil ever seen in centuries, and how it ended. She had always loved my greatest friend as a son, so she chose to give him both the challenge and the glory at the very end, after having shown that he wasn't really unaccompanied, alone - and after having chosen who was, to her, the doomed one facing his death.

Only that wasn't the way it ended, for us. Many tales could have been written about what happened and about what it means to stay and confront difficult choices. Some died, some survived, there are so many stories that can be told in more than one way, with more than one outcome, and so this is what could happen when our destinies are written.

She gave us life, and now this life can't end just with the last word in a book. And she, like life, was merciful, because she didn't say everything, so that others could tell something more and something different… We are really beyond the words of all those that write of us, and this of course is due to the beautiful way she wrote us in the first place, bringing to life all the magic hidden among the wishes of the readers.

Remembering the events told in the novel, it has been surprising to see old Bathilda Bagshot, for example, having such a role, because she was very old, but not dead or "gaga", and she was able to lead the group of authors that wrote the story of Hogwarts. I helped her with the tale of the days when I was with my friends, hidden in the woods and fighting, and I told her everything about the last battle in the grounds of the castle, before the publishing of the updated _Hogwarts; a History_.

Minerva McGonagall: another that wasn't that old, she ruled the school as Headmistress only for few months, until the former Headmaster returned into his charge. Then her soft heart weakened and one day it ceased to beat. Now a beautiful painting is on the wall, among her predecessors.

Harry married Ginny, they have a beautiful family, now, but she isn't a queen and he isn't the white knight. It was another man who deserved to be compared to Lancelot, as his heart was so loving without being loved, or even pretending to be.

I simply wanted to give to Severus a reason to live, at the beginning and after the discovery of the truth. A miracle had suspended him, meanwhile, between life and death, but for a long time he didn't seemed to wish to live. Not a surprise, after what he had suffered, after having experienced in his life so few moments of real care by someone else.

I decided to stay, I didn't leave his bedside until the moment when he spoke his first sentence. I'd gone on telling him healing, comforting words, for so long a time… In the Muggle world this had worked for some people in comas… if the first miracle had happened, why not the second?

Harry, too, prayed for this success. To him the victory had been a great reward, but it had been difficult to enjoy it completely if the man who had protected him for so long, even until the very end, couldn't be saved.

All was well, in time, and the school was rebuilt, with hope and respect for the lessons learnt. Now I'm here, with my husband who sits in the middle of the High Table, and our son is going to be Sorted. I will always remember what the day of his own Sorting had meant to Severus, when to be in Slytherin was something so difficult. She, too, has written about this lesson, but not enough: things really are different now, and every boy and girl can be serene in front of the Hat.

So, you see, she wrote a story that was exciting to read, but it wasn't the only one, and never will be. I don't know what the children will learn about choices, about life, death and about the right that every human soul has to live a life worth living, from her story. What I know is that our lives, as we are living them now, are an evidence of hope, for those who need it, for those who believe in it.

_**ssssssssssss**_

A/N

_I have respect for the tragedy of the death, of his death. But simply, like Hermione, I can't stand what isn't fair. I know that life is not always bearable, that people wish for death, sometimes, and welcome it, but I also believe that even the most serious fiction should not be worse than how real life already is._

_I'm going on reading old fan fictions, and I'm glad to be still able to do this. Many were already AU, other ones will become so, but my feeling is that what emerged from the books was a man who deserved a different life and a different destiny. And those stories give and will give him both._


End file.
